NEU: ‘Stop the War’, Stalinists, SWP block solidarity with Ukraine

With thanks to Lynn Perry at Workers Liberty:

The National Education Union (NEU) conference took place in Bournemouth, 3-6 April. Motion 37 was “Solidarity with Ukraine”. It was debated on the Thursday, following a packed fringe meeting that heard from Ukrainians who had lived under Russian occupation, a Ukrainian trade unionist, PCS Assistant General Secretary John Moloney, and John McDonnell MP.

The motion would have committed the union to showing solidarity with the Trades Union of Education and Science Workers of Ukraine (TUESWU) and the Free Trade Union of Education and Science of Ukraine (VPONU). The motion also reinforced the commitment to support Ukrainians in the defence of their homeland.

The motion had a lot of support and would almost certainly have been passed if not for the shameful tactics of some speakers and some dreadful, conspicuous filibustering unworthy of a democratically constituted education union. Eventually the motion was ruled out of time and did not go to the vote. Speeches in favour of the motion from Workers’ Liberty people and other supporters of solidarity for Ukraine had got vocal support from conference delegates.

One delegate told Shiraz: “We had the main motion. Stop the War had amendment 1; we worked hard all week and knew we had the majority of conference; StW knew that too, so they filibustered conference so it didn’t take a vote (NEU has a weird procedure whereby a debate can start and if it runs out of time, it stops without a vote).”

Another delegate added: “I don’t think I have ever been more appalled at the behaviour of a faction at conference to thwart the clear view of the majority of delegates, not even in the dark days of the so-called Broad Left back in the 80s and 90s. The guy who moved the StW amendment, Stefan Sims, Secretary of Ealing I believe, began walking up the steep steps to the back of the hall about one minute before he was due to speak to that amendment. When he was called to the podium he began slowly walking back down to the podium, taking roughly two minutes to get there. He was being jeered by some in conference. When he got to the podium he walked passed it to the platform where the president was sitting to complain about discrimination against him as he said he had a bad back and so could only walk slowly. It was a disgrace. The seconder of the amendment, Joe Flynn (an ex comrade) is the chair of the Conference Committee that orders the agenda. He was central to the decision to put the STW delete all amendment as the first amendment despite custom and practice being that ‘delete alls’ should be taken last.

“I was quite shaken by the way they behaved and driving home I was quite distracted, so much so that I had a minor accident on the way home. People who trash democracy like this are contemptible and you wouldn’t want them near any form of government power.”

Here’s what a delegate wrote for Workers Liberty before the conference:

The union has still not passed a position on the war over two years after the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The leading faction in the NEU, the NEU Left, led by the SWP and Stop the War (StW)-supporting, Stalinoid leftists, have attempted at past conferences to have a position adopted which they call “pro-peace”.

The NEU Left want the West to stop providing weapons to Ukraine which, they claim, will bring “peace”. In fact inadequate arms supplies are bringing terror to Ukraine as its towns and villages are bombed and civilians killed in missile strikes.

Starving Ukraine of the armaments it needs to defend itself simply means allowing Putin to win, imposing his rule on Ukraine. Putin’s war aim is to abolish Ukraine.

The NEU Left leaflet explaining their position contains ridiculous clauses such as: “We now know that genuine attempts in March 2022 to secure a peace agreement were scuppered by the US and UK governments”. The actual barrier to peace was the invasion of Ukraine by Russia the month before. By June 2022 there were 700,000 Russian troops in Ukraine, occupying 20% of Ukrainian territory.

Aggressor

All the NEU rhetoric is aimed at denunciations of the West, ignoring the aggressor: Putin’s Russia.

The UN (February 2024) estimates rebuilding Ukraine will cost $486bn and take over ten years.

The NEU Left also argues that UK military donations to Ukraine would be better spent on the NHS. This is not a left-wing position. It is a shameful and British-nationalist argument. Since when have socialists thought we must choose between the NHS and school funding? Between child mental health services and international aid?

Socialists want both proper funding for the NHS and Ukraine to get adequate weaponry. Who should pay? The rich should be taxed to pay for both.

The NEU Left also finds itself with unpleasant allies. Those implementing its policy are far-right Republicans in the US Congress, currently blocking a $61bn aid package to Ukraine. The lack of air defence missiles and artillery shells for Ukraine, caused by the Republican-right in the US, is already causing Ukraine battlefield losses and allowing Putin to destroy civilian infrastructure — schools, hospitals, housing units and energy generation and supply.

We can already see what starving Ukraine of weapons looks like. In occupied areas Russia has repressed trade unions and all elected authorities. It has abducted, jailed and often tortured any Ukrainian citizen who opposes Russification and Putin’s tyrannical rule. Why should Ukrainians put up with that? They are right to fight for their liberty. They have a right to take weapons from whoever will provide them.

Two years

Over the last two years NEU conference has stopped the NEU Left passing poor policy on Ukraine, but the union has yet to adopt a position which backs Ukraine’s right to self-determination.

This means the NEU is out of step with most other UK unions, the TUC, and the European affiliates of Education International, all of which back Ukraine. Over 1,700 secondary schools have been damaged in Ukraine and teachers in occupied areas have had their trade union organisations smashed or driven underground, and are forced to teach the Russian curriculum, in Russian, the NEU still does not back Ukraine.

Ukraine estimates 19,500 Ukrainian children have been abducted to Russia.

This year there is an opportunity to vote to back Ukraine’s war of self-defence and back Ukraine’s beleaguered trade unions by voting for Resolution 37, advocated by the NEU Ukraine Solidarity Network. A delete-all-and-insert amendment from NEU Left (37.1) follows, placed immediately after the main motion in a move by the leadership-dominated Standing Orders Committee which breaks normal procedure at NEU conference.

Unions

Ukraine’s unions solidly back the fight against Russia, but they are also operating under martial law regulations and against a radically disrupted economy. The Ukrainian FPU union federation had 4,023,000 members in affiliated organisations in 2021, down to 2,739,000 this month.

The unions are battling anti-worker legislation from the mainstream Ukrainian political parties. The unions face 20% unemployment; 6mn people have fled abroad and 6mn more are internally displaced.

Nevertheless, the FPU education affiliate still organises 1.08mn workers. Those voices are routinely ignored by organisations such as StW which never have Ukrainians on their platforms. No Ukrainian agrees with them (the exception is a man called Yuri Sheliazhenko who is not on the left, and represents nothing). Ukrainian union activists are mystified and appalled that there are leftists in the West who oppose the Ukrainian state using Western weapons to defend their freedom.

Victory to Ukraine! Defend the Ukrainian labour movement!